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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013559">sick of losing soulmates</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetpeasprite/pseuds/sweetpeasprite'>sweetpeasprite</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in case you don't live forever [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Being Lost, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Immortality, It's all fluff, That's it, more immortal oliver au boys!, sequel to icydlf! don't read this if you haven't read that, this is me going "okay we did the angst what's next. ah yes. happiness", water fights</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:07:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013559</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetpeasprite/pseuds/sweetpeasprite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver moves in with Cassiopeia after realising he's unable to age.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Oliver &amp; Reinas | Cassiopeia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>in case you don't live forever [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653934</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sick of losing soulmates</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from dodie song of the same name!<br/>this fic will (most likely) not make sense if you haven't read in case you don't live forever! read that one first please i'm proud of it</p>
<p>as i said in the tags: fluff. that's it that's the fic</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>"And… welcome to your new home!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia opens the door with an over-exaggerated flourish to reveal a large oval room, with walls decorated like the rest of the castle. There's giant windows on one side, with large window seats covered in cushions and blankets - they look like good places to relax, or read a book. On the other side is a fireplace, with a comfy looking leather armchair and a fuzzy lilac rug next to it. There are multiple doors and hallways leading off to other rooms, but considering what the rest of the palace is like, it's not as daunting as Oliver thought it would be.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's so… cozy," he murmurs as he steps into the living room (or, one of the living rooms, he later finds out). They had decided that just using Gateway to transfer all his stuff would be the best way to do so, therefore he doesn't have any luggage or bags or anything. Oliver looks around in slight wonder.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes…" Cassiopeia smiles softly at him. "While I was waiting all those years, this room was one of the only things I had, but when I became the White Witch, I stopped coming by here, so a lot of things kind of… disintegrated." She frowns slightly, before bouncing back again. "But I got new things! So everything's fine. I did have to use Rejuvenate on a lot of irreplaceable books, however…" She winces. "Some might be a bit… dusty. And unreadable, seeing as they’re in an ancient language…”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I… guess I won't be reading those anyway, then," Oliver says, stepping further into the room and glancing at all the doors. "Where's… my room?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh! I thought you might like to choose." She smiles and gestures toward the doors. "Take a look around! My room is… kind of messy, so I think you'll know which it is. There are three spare rooms in this part of the palace, I believe, so pick whichever you want!" She pauses. "Or you could stay in a different part, I don't mind."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver hums in acknowledgment as he wanders down a hall, leading to a large kitchen and with more doors on either side. He opens one at random and is greeted by a big room with a double bed pressed against the back wall. There are bookshelves, a closet and a large desk with a chair that looks far too comfy to be in a workspace. He stares around in awe, wondering if this is, maybe, the fanciest of the spare rooms.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's the smallest one," Cassiopeia says behind him, making him jump. "Oh, I didn't mean to scare you! I'm sorry."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>smallest</span>
  </em>
  <span> spare room?" Oliver asks in disbelief.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Yes! It is also the one closest to my own room." She clasps her hands together. "Do you… want to look at the others?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks at the giant room, then back at Cassiopeia, and smiles. "I think this one's just fine."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's been twenty-four hours since Oliver moved in to the Ivory Tower.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hums a familiar tune as he strolls through white hallway after white hallway, bright flowers on either side of him, blooming out of deactivated robots. He passes an enchanted broom sweeping the floor - he's seen a few around, and he supposes they're how the castle stays so pristine. Cassiopeia certainly doesn't do the dusting.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He enters another teleporter, and comes out onto a balcony overlooking yet another hallway. The balconies, too, have been overrun by flowers strategically placed by the queen in order to look like an organised mess, rather than just a regular one. Oliver rests his arms and chin on the banister and gazes out over the robots. A few are missing from this hallway. He wonders if that's cause for concern.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sighs to himself slightly, trying to think of how to get back to the living quarters part of the palace. It's definitely somewhere, buried beneath yet more halls and giant rooms he's not sure the purpose of. Who needs three ballrooms? Are you throwing three parties at once?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Try as he might, Oliver unfortunately can't summon a map of the castle in his head. He sighs again. As much as he didn't want to admit it…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's lost.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hasn't even fully unpacked yet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe if he stays in one place Cassiopeia will find him. He doesn't have anything to entertain himself, though, and considering how big the castle is, it doesn't seem likely she'll come looking for him soon. If it was the White Witch's decision to have a palace this big, it was one of the many bad decisions she made. If it was Cassiopeia's, it was, perhaps, the worst decision she made.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>...Maybe that was exaggerating. It was still a pretty bad idea, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver exits the balcony and comes out in the hallway he was before. At least the teleporters are consistent. Maybe he'll be able to actually find his way around the place in the next hundred years. He leaves the hallway, and then leaves that hallway, and then goes right instead of left when he gets to a crossroads he's already been at.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This leads to - you guessed it - yet another hallway. But Oliver doesn't think he's been in this one yet today. The flowers are different - there's more blue than pink here, and much less yellow. If he's honest, Oliver's not sure he's been in this hallway </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He takes this as a good sign, even though it's most likely a bad one, and continues on his journey of castle discovery.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the end of the hallway, there's another teleporter. Oliver steps on it, and is immediately whisked away to another room. When the light clears, he finds himself standing in between two rose bushes, one white and one pink, and the teleporter isn't on a white floor - instead, it's situated on red brick. Oliver realises this is the garden - which means he's close to the main living quarters! He didn't even know there </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> a teleporter here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He steps off of it into the garden, and starts making his way down the path. Luckily, there aren't too many forks in the road - it's mainly just one path, snaking around the trellises and topiaries. Oliver turns a corner and nearly trips over a stray watering can, but manages to regain his balance and make his way to the now-visible exit.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He comes out into another white hallway, but this one is familiar, somehow, despite looking almost exactly like all the others. He makes a right and skips along the hall with confidence. He enters the third door on the right, and-</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Queen Cassiopeia!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia is sitting on a windowsill in the living quarters main entranceway, reading a book. At Oliver's call, she looks up and raises her eyebrows. "Saviour Oliver," she responds dryly, and the boy in question winces as he realises his mistake.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Sorry," he says, and Cassiopeia sighs, but then smiles at him. He walks over to join her, and she shimmies over to make space for him on the window seat.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You've been gone a while," she says, while Oliver makes himself comfortable. "What were you up to?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sighs. "Getting lost. Do you have any maps of this place?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She winces. "I could draw one up for you? It might be… confusing, however. There are a lot of teleporters in this place…" She sets her book aside and gets up to rummage around in a nearby bookshelf for a piece of paper.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You can say that again," Oliver murmurs, as Cassiopeia knocks books on the floor before pulling out an old journal and tearing out a page. "Aren't these books, like, magical, or sacred, or something?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Hm?" Cassiopeia leans back from her search for a pen to look at him. "Yes, I suppose some of them are." She dives back into the shelf, throwing books behind her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Shouldn't you-" Oliver yelps and flinches back as a book goes sailing past his face. "Shouldn't you treat them with a bit more… care?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"If they've survived this long, they can survive a bit longer!" She says cheerfully, re-emerging from the shelf clutching a ballpoint pen. "Found one!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Why was that there?" he asks incredulously, as she sits back down and uses the book she was originally reading as a table to draw on the piece of paper. "Why do you keep pens in the back of bookshelves?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia shrugs. "Things get lost a </span>
  <em>
    <span>lot</span>
  </em>
  <span> in here, so sometimes I can just look for something-" she taps her nose with the pen, "-like a pen, and find it easily. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> help that I have so many of these, considering I bought hundreds when I found out they existed." She looks back down at the barely started map and bites her lip. "Now, where does </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> teleporter lead to…?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver huffs out a laugh and watches as Cassiopeia tries to figure out what goes where - or, </span>
  <em>
    <span>where</span>
  </em>
  <span> goes where, to be exact. This might take a while.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver hums as he attaches a hose to the outdoor tap in the Ivory Tower's courtyard. It's been three weeks since he moved in with Cassiopeia, and he's… </span>
  <em>
    <span>mostly</span>
  </em>
  <span> unpacked. There's one specific cardboard box left with his locket, all his wands (excluding Astra, which he keeps on his person), the Wizard's Companion, and the Clarion in it. He's mainly not sure where to put them, now that he doesn't have to hide them in a dusty fireplace like he did in Motorville. A cardboard box doesn't seem fit for them, though.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He turns the faucet on and water comes rushing out of the hose. He turns it off before it can make too much mud, and then puts the hose down in the grass and walks over to where he put the dragon horn. He picks it up, takes a deep breath, and blows into it, hearing the sound reverberate across the sky.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One dragon cry later, Tengri swoops down into the courtyard, landing on the ground next to Oliver, bumping him affectionately with his nose and crouching down so he can get on his back. Oliver shakes his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not today, Tengri. It's bath time."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tengri immediately shrinks back, pupils retracting in fear. Oliver laughs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's okay!" He smiles in a way he hopes is reassuring to dragons. "No Water Bomb or Bubble Bath this time, just a hose."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The dragon relaxes a bit, but still looks wary as Oliver moves to turn on the hose. As he does so, a voice calls out from the entrance to the courtyard.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"You have a dragon?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver turns around to find Cassiopeia walking towards him, and smiles. "Yep! This is Tengri." Tengri moves forward to sniff at Cassiopeia, who stretches out a hand for him to nuzzle. "Tengri, meet Queen Cass- I mean," Oliver hastily corrects himself as Cassiopeia gives him a withering look, "Just Cassiopeia."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tengri sniffs her hand, before moving forward to nuzzle her cheek. Cassiopeia gasps slightly in both surprise and the feel of a dragon's scales rubbing against her skin, and Oliver laughs. "He likes you!" he says, and Cassiopeia beams with happiness.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"By the way," she laughs, "What in the world are you wearing?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver glances down at his outfit, consisting of an old t-shirt and sweatpants. "This is normal in Motorville," he tells her. "I'm wearing it for this."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver turns away to turn on the hose, turning back as the water starts flowing. Tengri stops nuzzling Cassiopeia in order to look at the water in fear. "I… would suggest moving out of the way to avoid being soaked."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh, are you giving him a shower?" Cassiopeia steps back and raises a hand, it beginning to glow with magic. "I can help!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No, wait, he doesn't like-" Oliver watches helplessly as Cassiopeia casts the rune for Cloudburst. Clouds appear out of nowhere in the sky above them, and rain comes pouring down on top of both Tengri and Oliver, missing Cassiopeia, as she was the one that cast the spell. "...Magic based water," Oliver sighs.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After the clouds have disappeared, revealing the sky to be bright blue once again, Oliver shakes the wet hair from his eyes and warily looks at Tengri, who stands stock still, very soaked. Then, to Oliver’s surprise, he shakes the water off and squeals in delight.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"He liked it!" Cassiopeia says proudly, then glances at Oliver and flinches. "Oh… I didn't mean to get you caught in that."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver looks at her, and without a word sprays water in her direction. She yelps and moves away, but Oliver chases her with it. Tengri watches curiously as they run around him, occasionally having to step over the hose to avoid getting tangled.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"This isn't fair!" Cassiopeia calls as she hops over Tengri's tail. "I don't have a hose!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Are you a wizard or not?" Oliver yells back, grinning.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia gasps, spinning on her heel and stopping in her tracks, nearly causing Oliver to run into her. Instead, he aims the hose at her face, causing her to splutter and duck out of the way. She draws a smaller, more concentrated rune for Cloudburst, focusing specifically on Oliver. He yelps as he recognises the effects of a nix.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not fair, now I can't use spells!" He complains, not that he was using any spells in the first place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That sounds like a you problem."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver sprays her with the hose again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tengri swishes his wings in excitement at the ongoing battle, causing Cassiopeia's Cloudbursts and the water from the hose to go off course, making both miss their targets completely. He settles down after they stop and look at him, but then they look back at each other, come to a silent agreement, and aim both their respective weapons at Tengri, making him squawk and fly up.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"No flying!" Oliver laughs. "We can't do that!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tengri flies away from them, going further across the grass, then lands and glares at them. Both Cassiopeia and Oliver laugh as the former's spell dissipates into thin air, and the latter lowers his hose. They grin at each other, the brief water fight over.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Well!" Cassiopeia says, wringing her cape of water and beginning to squelch her way toward the palace. "I think we should get changed, huh?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver hums, going to turn off the tap before glancing at Tengri. "I'll wash you properly another day!" he calls to him, and Tengri perks up and immediately flies up and into the clouds. Oliver catches up with Cassiopeia and says, "Won't we track water?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"That's what I have cleaning robots for."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh," Oliver says. "...Do you have any nix-be-gones?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"...Oh. Yes, I'm sure I have multiple. I'm… not quite sure where though." Cassiopeia winces. "Sorry about that."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"It's fine!" Oliver smiles up at her. "I'll help you look."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The nix ends up wearing off of Oliver before they can find the nix-be-gones, but they find them anyway. Why Cassiopeia keeps them in the bottom of her fridge, Oliver will never know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>---</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver wanders the halls of the Ivory Tower quietly, trying to figure out where he is on the extremely makeshift map Cassiopeia made him. He’s either close to a teleporter that will lead him to the gardens (and he knows the way back from there) or… near a big room marked “Practice Chamber”. He hasn’t been there before. He isn’t sure if he hopes he’s near there or the teleporter, because on one hand he’s curious, and wants to explore, but on the other he’s getting kinda thirsty.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stops for a second as he picks up a weird, familiar noise coming from down the corridor. It sounds again, but Oliver’s still not sure what it is. He tilts his head as he continues walking, the sound getting louder until he stops outside the room it appears to be coming from. According to his map, this is the Practice Chamber he was so curious about.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He realises the sound is almost definitely a spell, but he just can’t quite remember which one, which is odd. He can recognise the sounds of the most common spells instantly, and almost all the others with a little bit of thought. Extremely curious now, he opens the door just enough for him to slip through it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Practice Chamber is, somehow, both bigger and smaller than Oliver expected it to be. It's a large circular room with a bunch of metal targets hung from the walls and ceilings, as well as a few test dummies lying around the edges. One of the test dummies has been set up in the middle of the room. Cassiopeia is there, and Oliver looks just in time to witness her firing a blast at the dummy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fallen Star. </span>
  </em>
  <span>That's why he didn't recognise it - not only is it not in the Wizard's Companion, he hasn't seen it in over a decade. He lets go of the door, and it shuts with a louder </span>
  <em>
    <span>bang</span>
  </em>
  <span> than he thought it would, making him jump and Cassiopeia look around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She smiles when she sees Oliver, waving at him to come over. He obliges, making his way to where the dummy she had fired at was now half torn to shreds. "Was that Fallen Star?" he asks, even though he knows the answer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia claps her hands together. "Yes! I'm surprised you even remembered it."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver hums, looking at the dummy then up at Cassiopeia. "Why are you practising it?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh. Well," she glances at the dummy, "never can be too prepared." Oliver continues to stare at her, and she side glances at him, and sighs. "It's my favourite spell. Don't laugh! Like you don't have one!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver laughs under his breath. "My favourite spell's pretty obvious, though."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia squishes her eyebrows together, confused. "I don't know your favourite spell."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Not hard to guess."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"...Gateway?" she guesses, and Oliver shakes his head. "Fireball? No, that wouldn't be it, you're Oliver…"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"What does </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> mean?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Healing Touch? Healing </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hand?</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's still caught up on why Fireball wouldn't be his favourite spell, but puts it to one side for the time being and rolls his eyes. "It's Mornstar, Quee- </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cassiopeia.</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Mornstar!</span>
  </em>
  <span>" Cassiopeia snaps her fingers. "Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span> it's Mornstar. I can't actually cast Mornstar, you know."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver blinks. "You can't?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"My father could. I suppose that makes sense, considering Mornstar was his wand. But I never wielded it, so I never learned." She raises her hand and draws the Rejuvenate rune in the air, the pieces of the dummy magically sewing themselves back together and the seams fading away into nothing. Cassiopeia gestures for Oliver to step forward. "Demonstrate it for me?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver starts at being addressed, having been watching the spell work its magic. "What, Mornstar?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She smiles. "What else would I mean?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver huffs slightly, stepping forward and unsheathing Astra from his belt. "It's been a while, hold on…" he says, as if the Mornstar rune wasn't scorched into the back of his eyelids the moment he woke from his Soulsnare coma. He tightens his grip on Astra as he prepares to cast the spell, and begins to draw the rune in the air, it glowing teal and pulsing with magical energy. The big three spells - Mornstar, Evenstar, and Astra - are so powerful they make Oliver, as tiny as he is, float off the ground slightly, so as to protect him from the recoil that would most likely knock him to the ground if he wasn't. The completed rune glows brightly, the lines drawing in the magic to the tip of his wand and preparing to fire.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One of the reasons Mornstar is Oliver's favourite spell is that he can </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel</span>
  </em>
  <span> it being cast. It's a warm feeling in his heart, like it's being hugged, and then his wand, whether it's Mornstar or Astra, takes that feeling and turns it into pure energy, and energy into </span>
  <em>
    <span>power.</span>
  </em>
  <span> And Oliver can feel that transformation, and is the one </span>
  <em>
    <span>causing</span>
  </em>
  <span> that transformation. It makes him feel like Mornstar is </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> spell, and he loves it. Astra glows with a pure light that Oliver is sure would make him go blind if he stared at it too long, and he aims at the training dummy, and fires.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The light disappears from Astra, but the dummy starts to glow in its place. It's soft at first, then the light grows more intense, and then harsher, until it becomes a ball, parts of the light lashing out and tearing the fabric of the dummy like a hot knife going through butter. The ball grows bigger, until it envelops the remaining pieces of the dummy entirely and the swords of light swiping at it rip the remaining fabric to tiny, tinier shreds, and only when the light is satisfied does it begin to dissipate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver watches as the golden light fades away completely, and smiles as he drops to the floor, the spell complete. He wasn't lying when he said he hadn't done it in a while - he missed casting Mornstar more than he realised. He holds Astra to his side, subconsciously getting ready to cast another spell at the "enemy".</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He glances up at Cassiopeia, who stares, wide-eyed, at the now practically nonexistent training dummy. "Are you okay?" he asks, when she doesn't move for another five seconds. She snaps out of it and looks down at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't know if I'll be able to Rejuvenate that," she says, and Oliver laughs loudly. "No, seriously, how did you just wreck one of my training dummies - </span>
  <em>
    <span>built for magic </span>
  </em>
  <span>- with one spell?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver shrugs. "Mornstar's powerful!" he says cheerfully, still coming down from the high of casting it. "It beat you, didn't it?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Indeed it did," Cassiopeia murmurs. "I did witness you use it during the battle against the Zodiarchs, but I must admit, I was focusing on my own magic so much I didn't realise the power behind it." She smiles. "You've surpassed my father, you know."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver starts. "I have?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> saw a Mornstar that powerful from him. And Mornstar's power comes from the heart - the power of the wand has barely anything to do with it." She glances at the remains of the dummy. "I realise I was only eight when he died, but he did show me a few spells before then."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm…" Oliver stands frozen, processing this new information. "I'm more powerful than the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wizard King?</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Indeed! And you're only thirteen!" Cassiopeia says, grinning, and it takes Oliver a second to register what she said so he can glare at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Technically, I'm twenty-five," he grumbles.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Pretty sure my father only managed to cast Mornstar for the first time at </span>
  <em>
    <span>fifty-</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>What?</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"-so I'd say you're doing pretty well." Cassiopeia grins at him, then goes to set up another test dummy, as the last one… doesn't really exist anymore. Oliver stares at the space where said dummy had been as she does so, quietly thinking. He's more powerful than the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wizard King,</span>
  </em>
  <span> the guy who had wielded Mornstar before him, one of, if not </span>
  <em>
    <span>the,</span>
  </em>
  <span> most powerful sage of all time, and Cassiopeia's father. Not only that, Oliver's more powerful than him </span>
  <em>
    <span>when he died</span>
  </em>
  <span> at </span>
  <em>
    <span>twenty-five</span>
  </em>
  <span> (or, thirteen, if you wanna look at it that way, which Oliver does not).</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia finishes setting up the dummy, and heads back to Oliver. "Why are you so quiet, hm?" she asks playfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Could you teach me to cast spells with my hands?" Oliver blurts out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia blinks. "What?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Is that possible, or is it something you're born with?" Oliver continues. "I wanna learn."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"I... it's only possible if you're born with a certain amount of magic, which you </span>
  <em>
    <span>definitely</span>
  </em>
  <span> have, but-" Cassiopeia shakes her head slightly. "Why do you want to learn all of a sudden?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver shrugs. "Carrying around Astra is tiring. I wanna put it next to Mornstar in my room." Not that Mornstar had a place yet outside of the cardboard box it's still in, gathering dust, but still. "...And, y'know, it'd be cool to cast Mornstar that way." Right now, the energy he feels when he casts Mornstar is transmitted through the wand. If he casts the spell with his hands, then maybe it'll be stronger than before.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Cassiopeia mulls it over for a few seconds, then sighs and smiles. "I've never taught anyone magic before. I suppose I could give it a shot."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Oliver beams. "Thank you, Cassiopeia!"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pauses. "Do you know, I believe that's the first time you've addressed me without my title."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh. Sorry…"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Don't </span>
  <em>
    <span>apologise,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Oliver, dear lord."</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i will probably write a second chapter to this. i have a google doc filled with ideas. whoops</p>
<p>yell at me on tumblr: @sweetpea-sprite<br/>or on twitter: @demidemipancake</p></blockquote></div></div>
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